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Originally published as:

E. B. McGilvary, W. B. Pitkin, H. A. Overstreet and E. G. Spaulding. "The Problem of Values. [Report of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Discussion]". Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. 10 (1913): 168.

Editors' notes

This brief letter from the American Philosophical Association's executive is essentially a call for papers for 1913 meeting of the Association. Background on the Executive committee's discussion leading to this call for papers may be found in Spaulding 1913. It provides a framework for discussions pivotal to the development of attitude scaling and presented here as a historical note to those developments. John Dewey's response to the call for papers may be found at Dewey 1913

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The Problem of Values

American Philosophical Association Committee on Discussion

1. Is Value (1)something which is ultimate and which attaches itself to " things " independently of consciousness, or of an organic being with desires and aversions, or (2) is it a characteristic which a thing gets by its relation to the consciousness of an organic being, or to an organic being with desires and aversions?

2. In either case, as concerns philosophical technique, may, or may not, a theory of the nature of things be successfully developed without reference to a theory of values, and vice versa?

3. In both cases (under 1)what theory of relations holds for the relation (a) between values and other " things," (b)between a theory of values and a theory of the nature of other things, and how can it be shown that the specific theory of relations alleged to hold really does hold?

4. Could every position taken in 3 itself be taken only in dependence upon a prior theory of values, or upon values themselves?

5. Is there one fundamental standard of values, or are there more than one? How is the position taken here related to the positions taken with reference to Questions 1-4?

Notes

No notes

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